The fellowship supports the start up of a new digital business. The company will be acting upon the success of their dance teacher training programme Classroom Moves and developing a new generation digital teaching tool for teachers to deliver dance in their classroom.
Artistic Director, Kristine Sommerlade said: 'The fellowship will allow us to research and develop a prototype to then sell in the education sector. It is very unusual for a dance company to go in this direction but we hope that we will be pioneers in a climate where arts charities like ours can no longer rely on government funding and need to be innovative in the way we generate income.
'The new company will be a trading arm of the charity and we are very excited to have received this award and are looking forward to getting our teeth into our new business'.
Digital experts Tees Valley Dance members have teamed up with digital experts Guy Schofield, Joseph Scully and Kim vom Kothen to create the new company: 'We are combining experts in movement and dance teaching with digital programmers and games designers so we can create a user friendly and innovative new way to train teachers to teach movement activity and get children more active during the school day,' said Heather Walker, Company Manager.